Smith gets the battle underway at Phillip Island

Posted on Oct 16, 2015 by Monster Yamaha Tech 3

Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Bradley Smith undertook a solid start to proceedings at the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix and completed today in 8th  position as he took the initial steps in preparing for the 27 lap race on Sunday. The day kicked off with mixed weather conditions at the spectacular Phillip Island circuit as strong winds blew and small spots of rain fell throughout the session. Despite this, Bradley Smith powered through and started adjusting the setting of his Yamaha YZR-M1 at the circuit where he claimed his maiden MotoGP podium last season. By the close of FP1, he had posted a best time of 1’30.902 which left him in 7th.

In the afternoon, the weather conditions improved and Smith got straight back to work as he looked to lower his lap time. The 24 year old progressed as he made consistent steps forward before finally speeding to a best time of 1’30.032 on his final lap out of 20, which saw him close the day in 8th overall. His performance was only six tenths of a second back from the top time and leaves the Briton confident of repeating his strong qualifying position from last year where he began the race from the head of the second row.
   
Bradley Smith: – Position: 8th – Time: 1'30.032 – Laps: 37
“It’s great to be back at this superb circuit and overall, it has been a quite positive opening day of action. First thing is first though, the nature of this track is very fast so this morning was a massive wake up call because when you go into corners like the first and the third, as well as the back straight, it takes your breath away! It’s exciting to ride but it certainly awakens you even more at 10 in the morning! It took me a bit of time to adapt to this, but in the afternoon I got up to speed. We really focused on trying to improve my performance in the last sector of the track in FP2 as I believe that it will be very important to remain consistent in this area in the race. However, we are still struggling there a little bit, but we’ll continue our work on this tomorrow as we aim to find some more stability and grip. In any case, we are not too far from the front, which is positive especially considering that we had a few difficulties, so I’m convinced we’ll have a good base to start from tomorrow. So I look forward to jumping back on the Yamaha again and then clinching a good grid position for Sunday’s race.”